Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Why No British Tanks?

This
was a question I had on one of my recent You Tube videos. It’s a fair
question and one that deserves a bit more attention than is possible in
You Tube’s comment section. The question could have also been ‘Why no
Chinese tanks…..French tanks…..or soon to come…Japanese tanks? The
answer is the same for all of them.

Some
time ago I commented on a World of Tanks video by Sidestrafe. He was
reviewing some new patch (the coming of the British I believe) and said
something about the ‘new content’. I replied that adding new tanks was
not, in fact, adding new content to the game. He replied I was wrong and
rather than getting into some school yard ‘no you’ type of thing, I
shut up and went away. Oh, I still watch his videos, but he’s wrong and here’s why.

Adding
new tanks does indeed give some people more to do in that they will
‘grind’ a new line. For many people this is fun. Not for me. I always
hated grinding in MMO’s and this game is not different. If you were to
add new weapons, say, to World of Warcraft would anyone think that it’s
new content? What about a new SMG line in Call of Duty? Why is adding
tanks then, ‘new content’? New
content, for me, is something new to do. A new tank only gives me
something different to do all the same shit over again. Same pubs, same
maps (mostly), same tactics, same end result: another Tier 10 tank I
won’t play very much because the end game (and I use that term loosely)
is broken. Its awfully stupid to exclude a large portion of your player
base by scheduling when they HAVE to participate in said endgame. Other games have gotten around this just fine (Guild Wars I, Heroes and Generals, among others).

Look.
If you’re new here, and especially if you’re still really pumped about
World of Tanks, you may be thinking I’m full of shit, or that I'm a do-nothing whinger. The
thing is I’ve been saying this for years now, and along the way I’ve
offered many suggestions on what kind of content I’d like- the things
that would get me, a paying customer (to the tune of $1500 now) excited
once again. All those posts are here on my blog. Overlord even read one
and said some of the ideas were good. Just use the index on the side to
find them. The one thing I’ve said over and over and over is that new
tanks bore me. Seriously bore me. All the ‘new’ tanks are simply new
skins. Nothing they put out will give me an experience I can’t get in a
tank I already have, or have played. Cromwell? Easy 8. IS2? IS. Etc,
etc. I’m not saying there aren’t nuances to tanks but the general playstyle doesn't vary very much does it? Flank and spank, shoot and scoot, hide in the bush, corner camp, face hug, hull down, snipe..... Tactics stay the same across many different tanks no matter what nation they are from.

Wargaming.net
is a successful company and many of their moves are designed to make
them money. Once again, as someone who hase spent $1500 on WoT I can say,
fair enough- I support you (or used to). New Chinese tanks (simply a
copy of the Russian line- and you know that's true) were for the new
Chinese market. New Japanese tanks- ditto.

Now
I will admit that Wargaming has added some new things to do…almost
content…such as team battles and daily missions (one of the things I
always wanted and asked for) but new tanks? Yawn. My time in WoT is
fading and when I log in the last thing I want to do is grind up some
stupid new line so I can get to Tier 8 and then get frustrated with bad
teams ruining my night until I get to Tier 10 and then can’t play often
because it’s too expensive and rather pointless.

It was a travesty that British tanks weren't in the game from the start. A. Bloody. Travesty. My personal opinion is that the introduction of the French tanks set in stone the Wargaming policy (throw tanks at them comrades, they'll love us for it) and simultaneiousy ruined the game. Each successive line has had to have a tank that is just that much better than the ones before and this, in effect, ruins those previous tanks (called PowerCreep). I like the Easy 8 but there isn 't any point in playing it when the Cromwell, and the VK3001D do the same job but a bit better. But Gank, you cry, what about the love of paying a particular historic tank?

Yes, granted, that can be kind of cool for a while but 380 battles later in my E8 I can't help but think, when a Cromwell is doing a better job on the enemy team, why the fuck am I playing this tank? I'm a min/maxer. That's the kind of gamer I am so I won't play a broken tank because I thought it was cool in comic books when I was 9 (I'm looking at you Tiger I).

So that’s why there’s no British Tanks in my garage. The long version.